Avoid that identity crisis

· If you have been the victim of a mugging or burglary and personal identification documents have been stolen, they could be used by the thief to obtain credit or other products and services fruadulently in your name. For £11.75 CIFAS (cifas.org.uk) offers a service, provided on its behalf by Equifax, to protect your name and address from being misused.

· Check bank statements as soon as they arrive. If you don't recognise any transactions, call your bank immediately.

· Don't give account details to anyone who contacts you out of the blue. Be suspicious even if they claim to be your bank or the police. A bank will never ask for your PIN number or for a whole security number or password.

· Be extra careful if you live in a property where other people could get to your mail.

· If you think your post is being stolen, contact the Royal Mail Customer Enquiry Line: 08457 740 740 straight away. Make sure a mail redirection order has not been set up without your consent.

How the others do it

Financial institutions insist that loss or theft of cheques from the post is still extremely rare and most do not use registered post even when sending out large sums of money.

Both National Savings and the Inland Revenue told Jobs & Money that (unlike the case involving Legal & General above) if a cheque they issued was stolen, they would shoulder the cost and re-issue it.

When large sums are involved, most banks and fund management groups recom mend that individuals arrange for the money to be paid directly into a bank account rather than being sent through the post.

Wills and house sales tend to result in the largest cheques that most individuals will see in their lifetime.

Richard Grosberg, chairman of the Law Society's probate section, says sending cheques through the post "is very much the last option." If clients do not want to collect a cheque from their offices, they send it by registered post.

But as the Royal Mail has shifted to single delivery, registered post which may have arrived in the morning to catch a householder before leaving for work now tends to arrive too late, says Mr Grosberg. A card is pushed through the letterbox telling the individual to collect the item from the local sorting centre, but these can be mislaid, resulting in severe delays and lots of returned mail.

Check your cheque book

Take a look at that new cheque book. But start at the back. If you find a few cheques are missing, you could be the victim of the latest financial scam.

Instead of stealing the whole book and ringing alarm bells, thieves just take a few cheques at the back of the book, then deliver the rest to your address.

Victims rarely notice, giving the fraudsters time to write cheques to their accounts, grab the cash, and disappear. Last month, two residents of Walthamstow in north east London were hit, each losing around £2,700. But the problem is nationwide. Many banks fail to check signatures on cheques under £10,000.

A sophisticated version is to "borrow" a company cheque book and make a "carbon copy" which the fraudster uses to purchase goods. The cheques are accepted because they appear to come from a respected firm.

Another danger is where you receive a cheque for something you are selling. But it is more than you wanted. You realise the problem and contact the "purchaser" who apologises for the "error", tells you to keep the cheque but send the overpayment back "to keep matters simple".

You return the extra which is cashed. But the original bounces. Had you "dishonestly" kept the entire sum, it would have bounced. The item you were selling remains unsold and you end up with a hole in your account.

A variation on this is where the "purchaser" gives you a cheque for more than you want, asking you to send part of the balance to a "friend" via Western Union.

The advantage for the fraudster is that no bank account is needed - Western Union transmits cash. It is also quick and anonymous. Again, the purchaser's cheque is worthless.